


Thick Air

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HC Bingo prompt 'serial killers' plus a writerverse challenge for a 5 K fic, equals this. Pre-war. A couple of OCs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick Air

One day, Drift thought, scowling into the cloudy glass of ersatz engex in front of him, that stupid jet’s going to get himself in big trouble.

It wasn’t as gratifying a thought as it should have been. He’d seen Wing, all white and red and shining with that optimism of his, passing out flyers--of all things!--to some of the buymechs in the red zone. Buymechs didn’t want pamphlets, even with coupons for a free meal. They just wanted customers, money, maybe enough to buy some circuit boosters so they could forget the whole thing, their whole miserable life. And part of him wanted Wing to get his comeuppance, to see reality as it was, and not however it looked through those sunshine optics of his, but part of him...didn’t. And he didn’t understand that part at all.

That was the part he was hoping to drown here in the Lightwave cafe, one of the small underground oilhouses-and-everything-else that popped up in the lower zones. He sat by the door--part of his fee, because he had a rep now, and anyone coming in here would think twice about messing with Drift, the enforcer, the free agent muscle of the crime bosses who ran the shadow side of Cybertron.

Wing hadn't seen him--since that whole night with Gasket, the Security Forces, Drift had gotten good at going unseen, knowing just when to look away to avoid giving that feeling that the other was being looked at, just how to slip into an alcove without seeming to move furtively. But he'd seen Wing, and he could have sworn he heard Wing asking about him, and that was way, way too much.

Too much for this cludgy engex to handle, at any rate, the stuff tasting thick and rough, heavy and hard, like swallowing hammers. It wasn't going to do the job, but he didn't have another choice, another idea, other than the tiny room he rented and right now, the only thing worse than sitting with a half-empty glass of bad engex was the thought of sitting alone.

He was just about to order a refill when someone burst through the door. His lowlight optics flared, a quick scan. Gearslip. That already set him on edge, as though someone had set all the engex in his system to jangling.

Gearslip's words were worse: "Wheelwell's dead!"

***

It wasn't obligation or curiosity--honestly Drift couldn't tell what it was. All he knew is he'd joined one or two others, following Gearslip out of the Lightwave, as though looking at the body would make this more--or less--real.

"Syphoners," Drift scowled.

Gearslip shook his head, his janky left optic caught in the momentum a moment after he stopped moving. "Trust me, wasn't syphoners. Too much, uh, puddle."

That sounded...unpromising.

"So, not harvesters, either?" Another mech, a small green and orange biwheel. Gearslip shook his head again.

"Not a bad boost," Drift said, almost to himself. Gearslip woudln't bother them--he wouldn't look so rattled, as though his facial plating had gone brittle and thin, if it were just that.

"You'll see," Gearslip said, but there was no anticipation, no glee in it, merely a sort of flatness that was all the more horrible.

And Drift could see why, as the mech led them around the last corner. They were low, deep down under Rodion, so deep the air was thick, making the darkness feel almost palpable, like it had weight and mass. Security never came down here, not even to try their little extortion 'tolls', not even construction came this far down. If they needed to teardown an upper level, they merely collapsed something and built on top. No need for the expense and danger of excavation.

Drift flicked his headlamps on, his job making him bold, the gun in his storage giving him a confidence he'd earned. He could handle himself down here, and that attitude itself was enough to turn away the few, rare optics that glimmered at their passing. And those got fewer, until they were in thick, dense darkness, olfactory sensors nearly clogged by the reek of sulfur and rust.

"Why the frag you down here, anyway?" Drift dogged Gearslip's heelplates, regretting even coming, but not wanting to be the one to stop and back out.

"I was," Gearslip looked over his shoulder, his green optics furtive, "look, sometimes I scavenge, okay? Not like bad or anything."

Right. So there was a 'good' kind of scavenging now. Still, Drift wasn't much to hold anything against another gutter mech. You did what you had to to get by. He knew that, deep in his struts.

"Yeah, anyway," Gearslip added, defensive. "I caught the smell and," and Drift could smell what he was talking about, the sudden sweetish tang of fresh energon.

"And," Drift said, but with a heavy, definitive note to it. As in, Gearslip didn't need to finish the sentence. Some things, however true, were better off unsaid.

"And here he was," Gearslip said, pausing for a second in a tilted, shadow-clad gap, a threshold of some sort, before he disappeared, bouncing down to the lower floor. Drift followed, pushing quickly behind, the sudden jagged edge of plascrete rough under his footplates.

And then stopped.

Wheelwell--what was left of him, anyway--was nailed to the wall. Nailed, like with big steel bars under his shoulder gyromounts. His optics had been pulled out, wires still attached, and shoved into his screaming-open mouth. Energon streaked and splattered down the wall, to form an almost serene pool on the ground, a curved-edged puddle already scumming dry. The limbs had been hacked off, some of the proximal ends carefully capped, as if someone had wanted to cut, then cut some more off, and make sure Wheelwell didn't bleed out too fast.

Drift had done his share of killing--working for the undercity bosses wasn't a job for clean consciences or hands. But he'd never seen anything like this. He stepped closer, feet in the cool puddle, tipping up the head, to see the hollowed optic sockets, cables and wires still running down his cheeks like tears. He felt something, under his hands, his fingerpads finding a jagged edged hole, then another, on the back of Wheelwell's neck.

What the...?

He pulled his hand back, but there was no energon on them, nothing at all, as though they were just bored holes.

Circuit booster? No. That wouldn't have left a ridge like that, and the hole would have started to heal. He knew that from experience. But what was it?

"Drift?" Gearslip, his voice a whisper as though he feared that if he spoke too loud, something bad would happen. Drift couldn't imagine much worse than this: to die, your last sight being the inside of your terrified mouth.

"What."

"You're...uh, standing in...."

Yeah, the energon. That kind of squeamishness he'd lost these last few decacycles. It was hard to get all worked up over energon. Maybe he'd spilled too much of it himself. But it bothered Gearslip, and the other mechs, still clustered around the tilt-edged doorway, as though the scene illuminated from Drift's headlamps was more than enough to see from back there. "Yeah. Whatever."

He reached forward, wrapping his hands around one of the metal spikes pinning Wheelwell to the wall. Grunting, he jerked back, feeling it give in the old plascrete underneath the body. He pulled again, gritting his dentae as it pulled free, Wheelwell's body sagging, with a squeal of metal, scraping down the wall, still held by the other beam.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

"Getting him free. Not leaving him like this." It wasn't much, really, and he probably hadn't been much of a friend to Wheelwell, only spotting him once or twice since Gasket died. Each time, they'd turned away, as though ashamed of what they'd become.

He jerked the other one free, letting it fall with a ringing clang behind him as he swooped forward to catch what was left of Wheelwell's body.

Drift stepped back, not minding the messy footprints he was leaving. Not like Security ever came down here anyway, even if they did give a scrap about a dead buymech. It'd be ironic, though, if they did, busting Drift for one death he hadn't been responsible for.

He turned to the others, Wheelwell's body limp in his arms. "Get hold of a harvester. I'll keep him at my place till you arrange it."

"You think that's, you know, right? After this?" One of the mechs from the doorway squeaked as Drift pushed past him, the ragged sharp edge of one of Wheelwell's shattered thigh struts scratching his arm.

Drift wasn't much for religion, because, well, religion hadn't done much for him, so as he figured it, the feeling was entirely mutual. Still it was an old undercity custom, to take part of your dead friend, keep it with you, on you, in you. The perfect blend of sentimentality and practicality. "I think he'd rather become part of us than just, you know, end like that."

***

“But no one has come,” Bolt said, slumping down on the side of the small shuttle.

“It is easy to get disheartened,” Wing thought, “but that was how Primus worked. He tests you, sometimes with pain, sometimes with patience. And you must fight those doubts the same way you face opponents in the sparring ring: knowing they were there to make you stronger, your way more sure.

“You sound like you memorized that somewhere,” Sureshot grinned.

“Memorized it from experience, yes,” Wing said. He’d had to learn this lesson again and again, himself. “Besides, just because no one has come...yet, does not mean no one will. Maybe today, in fact!” It would be nice, he admitted, to have some kind of validation. So many pamphlets, so much outreach. It would be nice to see some glimmer of light in all that darkness.

The back door swung open: they were at the border of the undercity, and a Security mech stuck his masked head inside, little lights on the left side indicating sniffers activated. “Engex?"

  
They all shook their heads. “We know the rules,” Sureshot said, a little stiffly. It was why they had to use pamphlets with vouchers: bringing engex or any sort of food down to the gutters was forbidden. When they’d gotten their permits, the Security Forces clerk had been adamant about that, insisting that it was to prevent criminals from using engex as a form of bribery to recruit. The way he’d said it made Wing think he pretty much thought that that was what the Circle was doing.

The Security mech shrugged. “Have to check.” And to his credit, he didn’t seem very intrusive about it--they’d had guards who had turned over cushions, flipped open everything, even personal storage compartments. Wing was all about devotion to duty, but it had struck even him as being a little, well, overzealous.

The guard stepped back, signed to his companion, and the vehicle lumbered its way down into the lower zones. After a few more levels, the vehicle stopped. "Here today," Sureshot said. "Not as deep as we've been before, but there's some sort of Security advisory or something and we can't go further." His face pulled into a grimace.

"We do what we can," Wing said, takng up a handful of the chits. The Circle had so much--food and safety and comfort and serenity. So much to offer, and so few wanting it. It was something he couldn't bring himself to understand. Besides, he added, silently, maybe a few levels up, they'd find the mechs less suspicious, less hostile.

"No going too far," Splicer said, sliding out of the driving compartment. "You know, just in case."

Just in case, Wing thought, ruefully, looking around. These mechs were no danger to him: he had nothing worth stealing on him, other than the pamphlets, which they were more than welcome to. He wandered down the dark alley, his optics adjusting slowly to the lowlight, picking out the contours of mechs' bodies, dented, scraped, rusted, missing. These were poor sparks, who needed hope, if nothing else. Hope that Wing had in plenty.

A hand on his shoulder, from behind, gripping the top of his engine manifold, and Wing found himself spun around, the hand shoving him against the wall. He could have blocked it, could have flung the mech down, but these mechs, Wing thought, knew enough of violence. And there was time enough for defense, if he needed it. "I have nothing, friend," he said, evenly. Then. "--Drift?"

It had been a while, megacycles, even, since he'd seen Drift, with his friend, shown them the brilliant rise of Altihex in the heavens above. Altihex had still existed back then, his home, his world, his life.

So much had changed, but the wary intelligence in Drift's optics had not. Or if it had, it had become only sharper, keener edged. "Not safe down here," Drift said, his voice the same half-growl Wing remembered.

"Is this where you live? Is this what you--" What you didn't want me to see, he almost said. Because the answer was obviously yes, and he could see why. What mech would admit to being from this place with its poverty and hostility and darkness? "I missed you."

Drift's mouth worked, as though chewing gravel, grinding up some harsh words. "Not the point," he said, finally. "It's not safe."

"I know, I imagine it's not," Wing said, his easy smile spreading over his face again. "But Drift, I have nothing to fear. My faith--"

"Faith won't save you from anything." Drift snorted.

That was where Drift was wrong, but now wasn't quite the time for that lesson, because Wing could see the earnest glow of actual concern haunting the mech's redlight gaze. "Drift," he said, lowering his voice. "I can take care of myself. It’s sweet of you to care.”

  
Drift seemed to recoil at the words, mouth pulling into a scowl. “I’m just saying,” he said, stiffly, “you don’t belong here.”

“Do you?” Wing looked around, one hand gesturing behind Drift, where the gutter mechs staggered by, optics cracked, glazed by circuit boosters, or the buymechs straggled, trying to look appealing for a job they didn’t want buyers for.

Drift seemed to boil, his armor flaring, before spinning on his heel, hard enough for the plascrete to grate under his heelplate, leaving Wing, stunned, wondering how his compliment could have gone so awry.

***

 

Drift didn’t like harvesters. Nobody did, though. They lived on the margins of the margins, because they were needed, parasites among the poor. Still, it sent a shudder through him, stirring up old guilt, as he opened the door. It didn't help that the harvester was huge, filling the doorway, his back a mass of transformation kibble, on which Drift could see the insignia of one of the up-city hospitals.

“Spanner,” the harvester said, a blunt introduction, and probably not his real name, waiting to be gestured inside, to where Wheelwell’s body laid in the one, small, bare room Drift rented. He kept a place just to be able to sleep in a room with locks, as safe as he’d ever been, nothing more. Drift grunted, stepping aside. He didn’t need to give his name, not to a harvester. Bad enough he knew where Drift lived. Drift shifted position, popping one of his guns from his storage, just as a hint. Yeah, don’t think of coming back here for a freebie.

“He’s over here,” Gearslip gestured to the corner, where Drift had piled Wheelwell’s broken body, covering it with a scrap of tarp. Drift was no stranger to killing, but sitting in a room with a corpse was...not a good thing.

Spanner nodded, dropping to his knees, peeling back the tarp with a not-entirely-professional eagerness. “Fresh,” Spanner said, with a pleased nod. “Joints haven’t locked yet.”

“Don’t care about the shop talk,” Drift said. “Just do your job.”

Spanner looked up at him, squinting through a projecting lens. “You don’t care how he died, then?”

“Think it’s pretty obvious,” Drift said, poking one of the severed limbs with a foot.

"Only if you're dumb," Spanner retorted. "Look here." He lifted Wheelwell's head, rotating it to show the back of the neck. "See these?"

They were the holes Drift had felt. "Yeah."

"Marks of a mnemosurgeon. Then you got this one, here, a little earlier--you can tell from the shavings and edgewear."

"So what?" He hated asking, knowing Spanner probably wanted to show off, but maybe it would help to know how Wheelwell had died.

"Biggest new thing in Silicon Sector is mnemovids. They started a few megas ago, with the obvious wish fulfillment scrap: day in the life of a Senator, luxury, sex, you name it. The market's always after the latest and edgiest thing."

"Death vids?" Gearslip looked just about as queasy as Drift felt.

"Yeah, I mean, it fits. Whole thing was recorded, full body senses."  Spanner seemed a little more interested, titillated by the possibility, than Drift would have liked.

"It would explain the optics," Drift said, flatly.

"Huh? Oh yeah, it would. Killer'd want to hide his identity but that might be risky or clumsy after a while so...give the optics something else to look at." Spanner jiggled one of the optic cables, the optic bulb popping free from Wheelwell's mouth.

"So, right now, someone's using his death as some, what? Entertainment? They think it's fun?"

"Hey, hey, mech." Spanner held up one hand. "Not me. I don't go anywhere near mnemomods at all."

"Real fraggin' saint you are," Drift snapped.

"Oh? We gonna play this game, about who has a right to do what they need to survive...Drift?" Spanner seemed unfazed, tossing out Drift's identity like the weapon it was. "We do what we have to do, okay? And I don't make 'em dead, I just take what I can afterwards. Speaking of. Who wants what?"

Right now, all Drift wanted to do was punch Spanner in his big broad smug face. But this was about Wheelwell, and like it or not, they needed Spanner.

Gearslip caught Drift's gaze. "The others are on their way. But you get dibs, I think."

Last thing Drift wanted. "I don't care."

Spanner squinted up at him. "Normally I'd say the face but yours is...all right." A shrug, with an edge of a smirk to it. "How 'bout a finger? Mech in your line of work, you know, kind of hard on the hands."

"Leave my fraggin' line of work out of it," Drift snapped, trying to hide his hands, unsuccessfully, behind each other. But his were pretty rough, dented and scraped down past the enamel. Maybe....

"Standard fee for the harvest, the Trinity," Spanner said, "And any work I do here is free. Anything after, well, it's gonna cost." Right, a real Good Samaritan...profiting off the dead. "I mean, generous enough considering the brain module's probably fried."

It couldn't be an accident--Spanner probably enjoyed the way his callous assessment sent waves of nausea over their faces. "Besides," Spanner continued, "I already got a buyer for the transformation cog. A real addict."

"Hey!" Drift snapped, his fist--dented fingers and all--balling at his side. "Enough. Shut up, do your job." That was what he did, after all.

 

***

The day had hardly been successful. It hadn't been a failure, really, in that nothing had gone significantly wrong, but nothing had gone particularly right. Wing still had a stack of pamphlets in his hand, his audio catching the mechs he'd just spoken with snickering. At him. No takers.

Still, he would focus on the positive: they'd spoken with him, at least, and one of the buymechs had stared after him with a kind of awed envy--at his gleaming armor, at his well-maintained systems. And the day was not--quite--over.

Besides, he had that feeling that something would happen, something different, exciting. He’d seen Drift: maybe he’d see him again.

Wing stepped down one of the side corridors. It was surprising how fast it got dark, how little the caged lights seemed to cast their glow, as though the darkness cowed them. But he saw, on the floor, over there, a little glow, a phosphorescent glimmer. Wing stepped closer, and saw a message, clear, in the glyphs of the old tongue. ‘Help.’

He felt his spark pulse. Help? He looked down the corridor, the almost cloudy gloom, and saw what looked like another of the scribbles, this time, low down on a wall.

More, and more. Each lighted scrawl was just enough distance to begin to see the next. The darkness had swallowed him utterly, and the running lights of his frame did little to light his way. But he pressed on, caught up in the mystery, footsteps fast on the uneven, crackled plascrete.

The last one was hasty, smeared, with something like an arrow pointing into a low break in the wall. He looked down the corridor. Nothing. Not a glint of another sign. The trail seemed to end here. Wing hesitated, but only for a klik, dropping down to his knees, to peer into the darkness. “Hello? Friend?” He ducked lower, peering into the blackness. “Do you need he--”

He sensed a presence, a mass behind him, an instant--too short to measure--before he felt the cool stab of metal against his neck, up under the gorget cowling. The word broke into a gasp, and everything went white in a blaze of pain and then he fell into darkness.

***

All Wing knew was some amount of time had passed. He couldn’t begin to guess how much, just too much. Others were probably worried, looking for him. And he...had no idea where he was. It felt different, even as his optics slowly onlined. The air felt thicker here, and it smelled different, like rust and unchanged air and the rancid clogging reek of old energon.

He heard a sound--his own voice, but his vocalizer seemed muffled, or undercharnged, and making words seemed a bit beyond him.

“Awake already.” A voice modulated flat, alien, utterly without timbre or warmth or any identifying feature, not even inflecting the question. If it was a question.

“Who are you? Where am I?” The words seemed to take forever to get out, each sentence like a labyrinth he had to struggle to navigate.

The speaker ignored him--well, his words. He came closer, as Wing’s vision began to resolve, and all Wing could see, in the dim light from a portable lantern, was a mass of fabric, over the limbs, over the face, only blue optics studying him from under the dark hood. “Better constitution than most I get down here,” the hooded figure observed. A gloved hand reached out, probing the top of Wing’s chassis, a thumb tapping along the armor as though seeking a hollow point or seam.

“What are you doing? I have friends!” Friends who would probably be looking for Wing, right now, in fact. He tried to raise a hand to push the other’s gloved hand away, but his limbs felt heavy, almost impossible to move: all his effort could make his fingers twitch, nothing more.

“Prepping,” the other said, blandly, distracted. “Hate to repeat myself but….” He stood up, one hand grabbing Wing’s feeble wrist, hauling him up, against his will, dead weight swinging at the end of his arm. He propped Wing up against the wall, pushing at the jet’s knee flares, till the joints locked.

Wing felt his flightpanels scrape against the cool rough surface. He felt his spark throbbing. He felt like he’d been plunged into icewater, his systems running with a painful cold of fear. “Please,” he said, his voice sounding distant, like it was someone else’s voice, or from another room. He wasn’t sure what he was asking, just that...whatever this was would not happen. “I can. I can get you engex.”

The figure looked up at him, the optics shimmering with mirth. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of that. That’s not why we’re here.”

Wing wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to know. It was another discomfort he didn’t want. And it didn’t last long, because the other turned to a pile of equipment, then turned back, holding what looked like a steel javelin or stake in his hand.

Wing drew back, trying to press himself--as much as his body would allow, which wasn’t much--away from it, air sucking sharply into his vents.

And then the other struck, and the steel drove through Wing’s chassis. Words fled from Wing’s vocalizer: he gave a howl, a high keen of pain, his fingertips clawing helplessly at the wall behind him. His comm flared open, a loss of control, and he blasted a sound of pain and fear across the channel.

“Oh, Primus, yes,” the other said. “Beautiful.” He tapped the javelin, sinking it into the wall, then leaned forward, cupping Wing’s chin up. Wing’s optics darted around the room, as though they could escape, if nothing else could. The pain, and the scream, combined somehow across his sensor feed, still echoed through him, a raw scrape of pain that made him afraid to move, even if he could. “You’re going to make me a lot of money.”

***

Drift jerked awake, the comm message still scorching his audio. His hand had clutched for his holster, finger already curled around the trigger finger, his spark slamming noisily through his system. He called up the data--he didn’t want to replay it. There was no need, and the channel was dead. But he knew that voice. He knew that voice.

No. Drift. This is stupid. It couldn’t be. Why would he?

He forced himself to lay back down on his berth, with an effort like unbending steel, and found himself staring up at the ceiling. If he closed his optics, his mind swarmed with the image of Wheelwell’s body, the hideous damage done to his body, fluttering with images of Wing.

Not my problem, he told himself, flopping onto his side.

Which lasted about five microkliks, before he flung himself off the low berth in his tiny room, with a growl. It was just bad timing--Wheelwell, the harvester, seeing Wing. That and a guilty conscience. Just a bad memory purge.

Just a bad purge.

  
He checked his gun, grabbing another magazine of ammunition, flinging the door aside and storming into the streets. This was stupid. He was stupid. But his mind wouldn’t let him recharge until he checked.

With the skill of someone who’d lived all his life in the gutters and undercity, he knew his way back to where they’d found Wheelwell. It wouldn’t take a cycle, and he’d go, and have a bitter laugh at himself when he found the place empty, and hopefully immolate the last of that conscience, the last scrap of caring about anyone at all.

Mechs parted before him--the anger in his stride, the narrow slits of his lowlight optics, the gun swinging freely in his hand. He was trouble and everyone in the red zone already had enough of that.

He dropped down to the lower levels, not caring that his feet rang on the cracked plascrete. It was easier without Wheelwell’s body, without the nervous Gearslip, the gaggle of others, his feet sure on their way, until he could see the off angle of the doorway.

And it wasn’t the dark mouth it should have been. There was a light there, thin and tarnished, and the hint of movement. His body tensed, sliding into a crouch, gliding forward.

A noise floated out to him, a whimper, of pain and pleading. Wing’s voice, Drift thought, a match to the sound that had shattered his recharge.

He sidled up to the doorway, pistol center mass. If Wing was where Wheelwell had been...he calculated the position, before spinning on a heel, dropping down the low step, gun aiming.

He’d made a mistake: Wing was there, pinned up like Wheelwell had been, but on another wall. He should have thought of it, that the metal spikes couldn’t go in the same place, that it would be exactly like last time.

His movement caught the attention of the other figure, Wing too lost in pain to move, sagging heavily against the metal bars that pierced his frame. But all Drift could see was a swirl of fabric, and then the room blazed up to a phosphorous glare, blinding his optics, set to the dimness of the gutters. He cursed, as though that could break the light, and then felt a heavy impact on his chassis, fabric and metal underneath, shoving him aside.

Drift shook his head, snarling, trying to clear his vision, swiping his free hand over his face.

“Drift…?”

Wing’s head turned, slowly, and Drift could see that one optic had been shattered, broken, streaming energon down his cheek. Drift twitched, looking to his left, at the doorway, where he could swear he still heard the retreating footsteps, torn. Kill or...help.

He hissed, slamming his gun in its holster, stepping forward. “Yeah. It’s me.”

Wing’s face crumpled, into a sob. “He was going to kill me.” He sounded in shock--who would want to kill Wing? It was something that defied everything the jet knew about life.

“Yeah. I know.” And Drift knew that the robed mech would have pulled the memories from Wing’s dead body, and sold them. He...didn’t think Wing needed to know that. Not just yet. He stepped closer, wrapping a hand around one of the bars pinning the jet to the wall. “I’m gonna….” It was different with Wheelwell, who’d been dead, beyond pain. It had been easier. This was going to hurt.

A solemn nod. “Please. I can bear it. I just want...free.”

Drift scrunched his optics closed, as though not seeing would help, and jerked the metal bar free, his tank flipping at the sound of the metal grating its path back through Wing’s chassis. He moved onto the other one, optics still closed, not giving himself a chance to think, to process, just jerking it out.

Wing gave another cry, but this time it was a sound of pain mingled with relief. His knee joints quivered, trying to hold himself upright, and failing, just as Drift stepped forward, pulling the jet off the wall, into his arms.

The jet’s arms moved, feebly, as though at limited power, clinging weakly to Drift’s body, his face burying itself in Drift’s throat. He could feel the jet shaking, trembling, overcome. “Thank you,” Wing breathed, barely audible, and Drift could feel the wet heat of leaking energon from the holes in the jet’s chassis, slipping down his body like tears.

***

“And here I thought you didn’t like me,” Spanner smirked, as he knelt down beside Wing.

“I don’t,” Drift said. “Only medic’s code I knew.” He still had the information from Wheelwell’s partitioning.

“Well, you could have picked a lot worse, at least,” Spanner said. “As for your friend here, he’s going to need more work. Cosmetic stuff, refabbing the armor. Stuff I don’t have facilities for here.” He had plenty: Drift had to admit he saw the use of Spanner’s massive kibble, as the harvester had tugged out item after item: plastic pouches of replacement energon, tubes, hoses, clamps, strut braces, gel, sealants, things Drift didn’t even know what hey were called.

“But he’s going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” Spanner seemed almost affronted. “He’s going to be a little sore in the morning, but that’s it. Got him nicely sealed up and everything. Flushed the cybertox out of his lines, too.” He squatted back on his heels, clapping closed one of the jet’s chassis compartments, and pulling out a small data chit from his wrist unit. “List here.  What I fixed, what I patched and what needs more than I can do here. Oh." He snatched the chit back just as Drift reached for it. "This one ain't free."

"Last time wasn't free either," Drift snapped, jerking the chit from Spanner's hand. 

"I mean this one's gonna cost actual money."

"Funny thing. I have actual money."  He had some, at least, saved up. He'd get what he had to: he had a feeling he really wouldn't like owing Spanner a favor.

"Shame," Spanner said, winking at him.  Yeah, Drift thought, I _really_ don't want to owe him a favor. 

Spanner pressed his hands flat on the berth, pushing up to his feet. "Done all I can here."  He reached over, pulling the sensor block off from around Wing's neck, coiling the cables around his fingers. "Put in a good word for me with your friend here. Always looking for side jobs."

"I bet you are," Drift said, arms folded across his chassis.

"What?" Spanner grinned, "No 'thanks'?"

"You're getting paid," Drift reminded him.

Spanner gave a shrug, stowing the last of his equipment back in his kibble. "And you are no fun." He pushed past Drift, and for a klik Drift had a sickening lurch of a thought--what if the attacker, the robed figure, had been Spanner?  Too much coincidence...or not enough.  But no, Spanner barely fit through his doorway. He'd have at least gotten stuck in the narrow, irregular shape of the opening to the room he'd found Wing in.

"I'm plenty of...fun," Drift snapped, but the door had closed between them, and beside him, Wing gave another sound, a soft sigh, as the sensor block faded.

"Drift?" The jet's voice sounded hazy, dim. "Is that you?"

Drift stepped closer. "Yeah, it's me. The...the medic just left."  'Medic' in the loosest possible definition.

"That's good," Wing said, his head turning, slowly, optics beginning to warm. Optics safely still in his head, Drift thought, then shook the thought away. "I feel better. I can move." A wan smile, as the jet lifted a hand, watching it, as though impressed with himself. 

"Not too much, yet," Drift perched cautiously on the edge of the berth.

"We'll pay you. The Circle, I mean.  A reward or...."

Drift shook his head. "Don't want their money."

"I insist."  The smile seemed to come into focus, then flattened, as though hammered down. "You were right, though. My faith didn't save me." He reached out, catching Drift's hand in his. "You did." 

He shifted, his hand going stiff and still in Wing's, writhing under the compliment.

"Drift?" 

"What." What else?  The night was folding in around Drift again, all the energy and anxiety starting to fade, leaving him heavy and exhausted.

"I'm sorry. For whatever I said that offended you earlier."

Drift scrunched his face, trying to remember. Oh. That. It seemed stupid now, to get upset about such a dumb unimportant thing like words. "Yeah, don't apologize. It's nothing." 

"It's not nothing. You saved my life, Drift.  Even after I hurt your feelings."

"I said it's nothing," Drift said, shifting awkwardly, as though the berth under his hip was too hot to sit on.  "We should--I should comm your friends."  He had Spanner's list and their medics were probably better. He felt a little dumb for not having thought of that in the first place. 

"In the morning?" Wing asked. His optics looked faded and tired.  Even with his flushed systems, and the sensor block, he'd been through a lot.  He was probably even more tired than Drift. "Please?"

"I don't have much," Drift said, spreading one hand on his thigh, like a confession. This room, a few rations of engex. Nothing like what Wing probably had with his pretty, fancy, well-waxed friends. 

"It's enough." Wing reached for Drift's hand, folding his other hand, both of them, around Drift's battered fingers.  And Drift felt himself pulled down onto the berth, wondering why he didn't resist, stretching himself out gingerly next to the jet's frame.  "It's more than enough," Wing said, with a contented sigh, his optic shutters folding like feathers over his optics, sliding gently into a peaceful sleep. 

Drift couldn't sleep, couldn't even imagine it, losing a single instant of this, of feeling the sleek armor against his body, the purring idle of Wing's engine against his chassis.  His tiredness faded, like ice melting under the light of a golden sun. "More than enough," he whispered, and it was.

 


End file.
